TAMPA, FLA. — By the time the mad ride ended, the memory of Steven Stamkos’s first goal was gone, or nearly. Neither the Montreal Canadiens nor the Tampa Bay Lightning could hold a lead for longer than three minutes and 15 seconds in Montreal’s 5-4 Game 1 victory, and by the end, Stamkos wasn’t what people will remember. They will remember the adrenalin of overtime sloshing back and forth, which was ended — a little improbably — by Dale Weise.

But that first of his two goals was worth remembering, if only because this series could be long and tight and Stamkos could be the one to make a difference. Because he can.

“The spotlight’s on Stammer, there’s no question,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “But I think the spotlight’s been on Stammer since he was 16 years old. The one thing — and teams win in all different ways, teams are built differently, teams are fast and small, big and strong — the one thing that can push teams over the top a little bit is having the player that is a little bit more gifted than most.

Stamkos’s season has been a mess, of course. He had 14 goals in his first 16 games, and in Game 17 he was backchecking in Boston when he fell and his leg hit a goalpost and broke. He missed 45 games, missed the Olympics, and when he came back he said he had to re-learn instinct; he was thinking through the play he was making, rather than the next play. It might have been costing him a second; maybe it was a half-second. But he had to think.

“I know he scored 10-some goals since he came back, but those first 10-15 games, he wasn’t himself,” Cooper said. “He was just slowly getting himself back.”

In Game 1, it was clear Stamkos was an instinctive force again. On that first goal, he gathered the puck and charged up ice, sidestepping Brandon Prust and going wide on Alexei Emelin. As he entered the far edge of the right faceoff circle he was moving so fast and the puck was on its edge and goaltender Carey Price was tracking the play. The whole thing was a blur, unfolding.

That is where the genius showed. Stamkos pulled at his stick just a little as if he was beginning to shoot, but he wasn’t shooting. It was a flicker of his wrist, a pull on a tendon, and the puck … settled. It flipped onto its back, nice and clean, and in the same motion Stamkos sent it whistling by Emelin’s outstretched stick and past a surprised-looking Price.

Price seemed to be anticipating that it would take another foot or two to settle the puck. But there is a reason that Stamkos is one of two men to score 60 goals in a season since 1996.

“It’s great because he’s moving,” teammate T.J. Brown said. “He’s not standing still, getting the puck. When you’re moving you have so many other things to think about — he has to have his eyes up, he’s got to pick a spot, he has too many things at once. It’s hands, wrist, his stick. He’s going 100 miles an hour.

“It’s subtle, just a subtle little movement — if he doesn’t settle it, it might not go where he wants it. And he’s got a guy on him. If you gave me 20 seconds to do it, I could probably do it too. But to do it all in one motion, all in one stride, it’s pretty special. It’s quick.”

“Yeah, I mean Stammer’s got a great shot, he can beat you a lot of different ways,” says Montreal’s P.K. Subban, who played with Stamkos when they were eight or nine years old. “I know when I’m out there against him, he doesn’t like it when you’re in his face, he doesn’t like it when you know where he is and you’re aware.

“I mean, good players like him find ways to be invisible on the ice, and they appear when they have to appear, you know? And players like Stamkos, (Sidney) Crosby and (John) Tavares, they have that ability to disappear and then you’re looking over your shoulder and next thing you know the puck’s between your legs and he’s tapping it in backdoor. You just have to be aware of him … and when I’m out there with him I do that, I just try to be aware of him. And when he feels like you’re doing that, he doesn’t like it. And nobody should. But he’s a great player, and you saw that yesterday.”

“Especially coming back from the injury this year, I was just trying to simplify the game,” Stamkos says. “I’ve just been trying to feel better each and every time I’m on the ice.”

This series appears destined to be close. These teams have played five games this season, and produced four overtimes. Tampa was unable to control possession in Game 1, and its 10 rookies — or nine, depending on emerging star Ondrej Palat, who has an upper-body injury — should be better acclimated in Game 2. For Montreal, Price won’t allow four goals on 25 shots too often. That depends, of course, on who takes them.

So Stamkos could be the kind of man who can conjure up a goal from a sliver of daylight. And that little bit of extra gifts — those artist’s hands, those subtle tendons, that speed-of-sound mind — could be what makes the difference.

“I think if you were to poll everybody in the NHL, the scariest guys to have the puck on their stick, in an area of the ice, you’d have to think he’s probably be in the top three,” Cooper said. “You can contain him for 59 minutes, and it just takes one slip-up and he puts it in the back of the net.

“So just to have that elite player … I’m just glad that we have one, and it’s him.”

After graduating from the University of British Columbia, Bruce Arthur joined the Post in 2001 as a sports reporter. After covering the Toronto Raptors, he became the paper's basketball columnist in 2005... read more, its Toronto columnist in 2007, and its national columnist in 2008. His work currently appears across the Postmedia chain three times a week. Arthur was born in Vancouver, is married, and lives in Toronto.View author's profile